North Korea Praises ‘Fire and Fury’ Book on Trump Administration

Retailers in the United States are having trouble keeping “Fire and Fury” in stock. Pirated copies of the book are already circulating online in Asia.Credit
Carlos Barria/Reuters

HONG KONG — Michael Wolff’s book about the Trump administration has been getting mixed reviews from critics and others, but it’s finding fulsome praise in one corner: North Korean state media, which says the book’s popularity “foretells Trump’s political demise.”

The book, “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House,” has apparently made its way to the so-called hermit kingdom, giving more ammunition to a North Korean government already in a raging propaganda war with President Trump.

“The anti-Trump book is sweeping all over the world so Trump is being massively humiliated worldwide,” said a commentary in the country’s Rodong Sinmun newspaper, which is run by the ruling Workers’ Party.

The book has sold so well in the United States — 29,000 hardcover copies the first weekend — that retailers are having trouble keeping it in stock, and digital and audio sales have topped 350,000. Pirated copies of the book are already circulating online in Asia.

Rodong Sinmun said those sales figures were no surprise, given the worldwide enmity toward Mr. Trump, who has belittled the country’s leader, Kim Jong-un, as “Little Rocket Man” and suggested that the dictator’s “nuclear button” is too small.